s
carefully examined to see at what time the piece had been bought. The
retail price was fixed. Monsieur Guillaume, always on his feet, his pen
behind his ear, was like a captain commanding the working of the ship.
His sharp tones, spoken through a trap-door, to inquire into the
depths of the hold in the cellar-store, gave utterance to the barbarous
formulas of trade-jargon, which find expression only in cipher. "How
much H. N. Z.?"--"All sold."--"What is left of Q. X.?"--"Two ells."--"At
what price?"--"Fifty-five three."--"Set down A. at three, with all of
J. J., all of M. P., and what is left of V. D. O."--A hundred other
injunctions equally intelligible were spouted over the counters like
verses of modern poetry, quoted by romantic spirits, to excite each
other's enthusiasm for one of their poets. In the evening Guillaume,
shut up with his assistant and his wife, balanced his accounts, carried
on the balance, wrote to debtors in arrears, and made out bills. All
three were busy over this enormous labor, of which the result could be
stated on a sheet of foolscap, proving to the head of the house that
there was so much to the good in hard cash, so much in goods, so much
in bills and notes; that he did not owe a sou; that a hundred or two
hundred thousand francs were owing to him; that the capital had been
increased; that the farmlands, the houses, or the investments were
extended, or repaired, or doubled. Whence it became necessary to begin
again with increased ardor, to accumulate more crown-pieces, without its
ever entering the brain of these laborious ants to ask--"To what end?"

Favored by this annual turmoil, the happy Augustine escaped the
investigations of her Argus-eyed relations. At last, one Saturday
evening, the stock-taking was finished. The figures of the sum-total
showed a row of 0's long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relax the
stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the year. The shrewd
old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at
table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful
of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage was heard. The
family party were going to see _Cendrillon_ at the Varietes, while
the two younger apprentices each received a crown of six francs, with
permission to go wherever they chose, provided they were in by midnight.

Notwithstanding this debauch, the old cloth-merchant was shaving himself
at six next mor